


Just Friends

by xslytherclawx



Series: HP Rare Pair Bingo - Round 2 [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Neville Longbottom, Chubby Neville Longbottom, Drunk Sex, Friends With Benefits, Harry Potter Rare Pair Bingo: Round 2, M/M, Past Hannah Abbott/Neville Longbottom, Past Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Professor Neville Longbottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:42:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27129421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xslytherclawx/pseuds/xslytherclawx
Summary: It’s Anthony’s birthday, and everyone else has gone home.Neville’s stayed.
Relationships: Anthony Goldstein/Neville Longbottom
Series: HP Rare Pair Bingo - Round 2 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980191
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Harry Potter Rare Pair Bingo: Round Two!, xslytherclawx & thestias's harry potter multiverse, xslytherclawx's Prompt Collection, xslytherclawx’s events collection





	Just Friends

They’ve been drinking when Anthony suggests it. It’s Anthony’s birthday, and everyone else has gone home.

Neville’s stayed.

Part of him knows why, but he’s not ready to think about that quite yet.

They’re both single. 

It’s quiet in Anthony’s flat now. The Wireless long since has been turned off.

“Have you ever thought of shagging me again?” 

Neville just about chokes on his drink. “What?” He expects that sort of blunt statement from Luna, but Anthony’s always been more tactful than that.

Until tonight.

“Properly, I mean. Not just – well, you know.”

Neville does know. It was a quick, rushed thing in what passed for a dark corner of the Room of Requirement. In his defense, an hour before, he’d been certain that he wouldn’t survive the night.

“I’ve… thought about it,” Neville admits.

“You want to?” Anthony asks.

Neville raises an eyebrow and looks at him, really looks at him. He’s a bit flushed, though that could just be from the firewhiskey. His eyes are slightly glassy, his robes are rumpled, but his expression is open and earnest.

Not that he really expected anything else. Not from Anthony.

“I  _ just _ got out of a relationship,” Neville says instead.

“I know. I don’t mean – neither of us are in a position for a  _ relationship  _ right now, are we?”

“So then what?”

Anthony shrugs. “Whatever you want.”

Neville takes a long drink of firewhiskey. Which is a mistake, because he’s not quite drunk enough that it doesn’t burn a bit going down, so he ends up coughing. “All right,” he says once he can say anything at all. “Right now?”

Anthony sweeps his gaze over him, and – fine, all right, it’s impossible to deny in that moment that Anthony clearly genuinely wants to shag him. And that feels good. 

“All right,” Anthony agrees.

He puts down his drink and stands, offering a hand to Neville.

Neville takes it. He sets his own drink down and follows Anthony down the corridor to his bedroom.

His bedroom is – well, it’s everything that Neville expected. It’s relatively tidy, though not spotless, and there are books piled on both bedside tables. He sees at least two bookcases before Anthony kisses him.

They’ve not kissed since – well, since Hogwarts. 

It’s been a few years since Neville’s kissed another man, and for just a second, the roughness of Anthony’s stubble throws him off – but then he’s overwhelmed by how fucking nice it is to be kissing Anthony again.

He doesn’t know who starts tugging at whose clothes first, but within a few minutes they stumble onto the bed, stripped down to their pants. It’s then that Anthony pulls away.

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Yeah,” Neville says. He’s worried that he’ll have to do more –  _ say  _ more – to reassure him, but it seems that’s enough. Anthony kisses him again and runs his hands down his back. He seems to hesitate at the waistband of Neville’s pants, and Neville really wishes he wouldn’t, because now he’s overwhelmed with self-consciousness. “Are  _ you _ sure?”

Anthony rolls his eyes and huffs out a breath of air. “Course I am. Just thought we’d snog for a bit first? Though if you’d like to go right for it…”

“Right,” Neville says, feeling stupid. “Sorry.”

Anthony kisses him, gently this time. “You haven’t got to apologise. This is meant to be fun for both of us, isn’t it? And I trust you; I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you if I were unsure, or uncomfortable, but I’m not.”

He’s right. Neville knows he’s right. And Anthony’s never treated him like he was stupid. “Right. ‘Course. Sorry. I mean. Not sorry.” He fights the urge to cover his face with his hands. 

But then Anthony is kissing him, and before Neville’s fully aware of what’s going on, he’s on his back and Anthony is trailing kisses down his chest. It’s no secret that he’s self-conscious about his body. There were a few years, he thinks, when the feelings weren’t so bad. Back when he was working as an Auror. (As much as he’d like to say his seventh year at Hogwarts, that’s not true; being half starved does not breed confidence.)

But he’s put the weight back on after changing career tracks. The Hogwarts House Elves really know how to cook, and he’s not doing nearly as much cardio as he was before. Sure, he’s still doing a lot of lifting, and he’s  _ strong, _ but strong does not mean  _ not fat. _

Anthony, though, doesn’t seem to mind.

(Neville knows, really, no one he’s been with ever  _ has. _ It’s been much more about his own issues than anyone else actually treating him like he’s repulsive.)

Anthony kisses every inch of him he can reach, straight down to his pants. Then he looks up at Neville.

Neville can’t fully fathom how he’s gotten this far, but he’s not about to stop now. “Only if you want to,” he says, which is as close to asking whether this is actually happening as he can manage.

Anthony grins. “I want to.”

Neville nods. “All right.”

Anthony pulls his pants down and wastes absolutely no time in taking him into his mouth.

And well, all right, this is as far as they’d got before, but it’s been a while, and Anthony has learned some new tricks. Even though Neville warns him before he comes, Anthony doesn’t pull away; he even swallows.

He gives Neville a few moments to catch his breath afterward.

“Fuck,” Neville says.

“Yeah,” Anthony agrees.

Neville looks at him again then. He’s as gorgeous as Neville’s ever seen him, and he’s looking at Neville like – well, like he wants little more than to spend the next several hours in bed with him.

Neville knows he should offer to blow Anthony, or at least give him a hand job;  _ something _ in the realm of reciprocity, but with Anthony looking at him like that, the words out of his mouth are, “I want you to fuck me.”

“All right,” Anthony agrees. 

“Don’t – don’t misunderstand me. I don’t just want you to have sex with me. I want you to  _ fuck _ me.”

“I don’t – I don’t want to go  _ too _ rough when we’ve been drinking like this, if that’s all right?” Anthony asks. “I mean, obviously I’ll fuck you, but… I’d rather err on the side of caution?”

His voice inflects at the end like he’s asking a question, so Neville says, “All right.”

And then. Well, he rolls over. 

He’s never, strictly speaking, done this with another man before. Maybe that’s something he should tell him, but he can’t bring himself to. After all, when he’d dated Luna, she’d enjoyed fucking him like this – though, in her case, it was with a sex toy. He’d never found the words to ask Hannah, and she’d never offered.

And, well, that was the sum of the people he’s fucked. At least before tonight.

When Anthony pushes into him, it’s almost overwhelming, but he wants more – and Anthony’s happy to give it to him. True to his word, he starts out slow, but when Neville asks him to go harder, faster, and deeper, he obliges.

Neville comes again before Anthony does, and afterward, Anthony rolls over onto the other side of the bed.

“So,” Neville says when he trusts himself to speak.

“So,” Anthony says.

“That was… fucking amazing, if I’m honest.”

Anthony smiles. “Yeah. I thought so, too. Though next time, I think I want you to fuck me.”

* * *

Neville sleeps and wakes in his own bed. It was a casual thing. Nothing more.

He and Anthony have been friends since fifth year, and he’s not about to endanger that friendship now.

Draco shoots him a strange look at breakfast. Neville shrugs and tries his best to look hungover. It’s not like Draco doesn’t know about the party. He was there.

Besides, even after years of working together, they’re not  _ friends. _ They don’t hate each other, which is a small mercy, because Neville remembers what it was like to have Draco Malfoy hate him. No; they’re mostly over that. Most of the time, they’re exceptionally professional colleagues.

Except, well, Draco just  _ had _ to go and date one of Anthony’s friends.

That’s complicated matters, admittedly.

Namely that Draco’s started to act casually around him. And yeah, all right, perhaps Neville is the one with the issue here.

But you can’t quite blame him, can you?

* * *

A week later, he’s back in Anthony’s bed, and it’s fun and comfortable and – well, Neville’s absolutely certain he won’t regret it.

But still. It’s best to set boundaries, isn’t it?

“Anthony?” Neville says before he starts to get dressed. Maybe there’s something to be said about vulnerability when he is quite naked, but he’s never put much stock in symbolism.

“Yeah?”

The words don’t quite come as Neville wishes they would. This is a problem he’s had as long as he could remember. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Of course we’re friends,” Anthony says with such conviction that it’s actually a bit surprising.

Not that Neville ever really thought they  _ weren’t _ friends.

“I just mean… we’ve not properly discussed…” He waves his hand about, trying to signify where words are failing him.

“Oh,” Anthony says. “Well… we’ve agreed that neither of us are in any position for a proper relationship.”

“We have,” Neville agrees.

“So I sort of thought – we’re friends, and this is just a bit of fun. Sort of like stress relief, though I think I speak for both of us when I say the stakes have really not been much lower since fourth year.”

Neville, in spite of himself, huffs out a laugh. “Yeah,” he agrees. This life he’s carved out for himself, petty annoyances aside, is more peaceful and calm than anything he’d ever thought he’d be able to have.

“So,” Anthony says, “that’s where I’m at.”

Neville hums in agreement. “That’s good to hear. I – I think I agree. I just… I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

“We are,” Anthony agrees. He leans in to kiss his cheek. “And if either of us start to catch feelings, we can discuss it, but… I think we know each other too well for that to happen.”

“You think?” Neville asks, like the words don’t sting a bit.

“In the spirit of full disclosure, I  _ was _ sort of mad for you back in sixth year, but… I think once you’ve become friends with someone like this, it’s different. Fundamentally sort of changes your dynamic.”

Anthony was mad for him in sixth year? Neville can’t quite make the words make sense, but he’ll turn them over more later. When he’s back in his flat, alone.

“Right,” he agrees now. “No, that makes sense. I don’t think I could  _ ever _ date Luna again.”

“We all sort of thought you two’d end up together,” Anthony says idly. “But then again, I suppose it makes sense that you’ve not.”

Neville frowns. “Why’s that?”

“I just can’t see Luna tied down to one physical location for more than a few months, and I think at this point… you’d be content never to move again.”

Neville has to admit that Anthony has a point. It’s a bit touching that Anthony knows him so well. “Can’t say I ever thought I’d end up here.”

Anthony looks amused at that. “Neither did I. But I can’t say I’m unhappy with the way things have turned out.”

Neville can’t bring himself to disagree.

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on [tumblr](https://xslytherclawx.tumblr.com/yuletide2020)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Movie Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28012635) by [xslytherclawx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xslytherclawx/pseuds/xslytherclawx)




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